Thursday, November 10, 2016

The Swami Vivekananda Airport, Raipur handled 11,214 domestic flights in 2015 and 5,910 flights till date. It has a commendable safety record and also placed itself as ‘numero uno’ twice in customer satisfaction index. Only three emergency landings were reported during year 2008, 2014 and 2015. An estimated 9.24 lakh domestic passengers used the airport in 2014-2015 and 12.2 lakh in 2015-2016 respectively. Their numbers have shown an encouraging upward trend over the past three years, making it imperative for airport, municipal and police authorities to corner the threat at the moderate level.
But so far, the working of Airfield Environment Management Committee (AEMC) for this airport, growing and expanding in terms of business and boundaries demarcation, has remained ‘clerical’ instead of ‘practical.’ For, the AEMC members meet only twice a year. Quite surprisingly, this year they met only once in February 2016, while the second meeting slated for September 2016, has not yet been convened for the reasons only known to them.
The AEMC – a statutory body – meant for taking a reality check of problems plaguing the airport surroundings comprises of Chairman, an ex-officio post for Principal Secretary, Environment and Housing Department, Government of Chhattisgarh, whereas its Convenor happens to be Director of Raipur Airport, who represents Airports Authority of India (AAI). The other stakeholders in the AEMC consist of representatives from Forest Department, Health Department, Mana Panchayat, Chhattisgarh Police, Naya Raipur Development Authority (NRDA), Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC) and District Administration.
09/11/16 Mukesh S Singh/The Hitavada